On Monday, the leaders of Integrity Florida and Policyholders of Florida fired off a letter to Scott, stating that Citizens’ recent
decision to disband its corporate integrity unit was “incomprehensible.”

“Abusing travel expenditures is unacceptable, but gutting
the watchdog inside of the so-called people’s insurer of last resort is
incomprehensible,” wrote Integrity Florida
director Dan Krassner and Policyholders of Florida founder Sean Shaw. “We find
it especially troubling that the terminated employees were asked to sign
confidentiality agreements. It certainly gives a perception of corruption.”

Scott has also
said he was concerned by Citizens’ decision to fire four corporate
watchdogs, even as internal complaints of waste, fraud and abuse are on the
rise.

Citizens president Barry Gilway said the state-run insurer
is realigning
its integrity efforts in order to beef up forensic fraud detection, and it
has put out job postings for new ethics officers. But the corporate integrity
team was disbanded before any forensic accountants were hired.

Sen. Mike Fasano,
R-New Port Richey, also asked the governor to probe the firings, which he
called shocking.

“The Office of Corporate Integrity should be the watchdogs,
not the scapegoat,” Fasano wrote in a letter to Scott.

Read the letters from Integrity Florida, Policyholders of Florida and Sen.
Fasano, below:

We are concerned about
the lack of oversight and accountability at Citizens Property Insurance
Corporation.

Last week, we learned
that Barry Gilway, President of Citizens, terminated every employee within the
Office of Corporate Integrity. As you know, these firings came on the heels of
reports of lavish, non-mission critical spending. Abusing travel expenditures
is unacceptable, but gutting the watchdog inside of the so-called people’s insurer
of last resort is incomprehensible. We find it especially troubling that the
terminated employees were asked to sign confidentiality agreements. It
certainly gives a perception of corruption.

We appreciate your
public concern and your request that Florida’s
Chief Inspector General scrutinize the wasteful travel expenditures. However,
we are asking you today to expand the focus of the Chief Inspector General’s
ongoing investigation to review the disbandment of the Office of Corporate
Integrity.

Floridians deserve a
closer look at Citizen’s accountability, ethics, transparency, and compliance.
As consumer advocate and government watchdog coalitions, we can only scrutinize
and protect policyholders and taxpayers with publicly available information. We
rely on internal watchdogs, inspectors, investigators, auditors, and a transparent
process to prevent corrupt use of public money and to safeguard the integrity
of the public sector.

Taxpayers and
policyholders deserve accountability. Thank you for your consideration of our
request.